This Monday, I brought the Puzzle of Life to the 8th grade class of Flintridge Prep. Overall, the day turned out quite well, which I found very encouraging. Kids were engaged in puzzling and puzzle-making, and were also thinking about ideas of connectedness. For this day, I chose to focus on the making aspect of the Puzzle. I told the kids to form groups, and then asked them to pick a task: making custom pieces, or devising a Puzzle-based game. For those who wanted to make puzzle-pieces (which was most of them), I offered four thematic options: zombies, cities, bugs/birds/snakes, or something of their own choosing. I told them to spend a few minutes playing with the puzzle, to get a feel for the way that it worked, and then to begin working on their chosen task. [gallery link="file" columns="2" ids="777,779,778,780,781,782"] Note: All photos used with the permission of Flintridge Preparatory School. The Puzzle playtesting took place in what is usually their community service class. At Prep, every eighth-grader is required to develop and execute a Community Impact Project (or CIP). They then present their projects at the annual Science Fair, using the standard poster-on-table science fair format. Having been a judge at several past science fairs, I can attest to the fact that some of these projects are pretty insightful and impressive. In support of the intentions behind this service class, I tried to emphasize the service aspect of the Puzzle, which is essentially my own personal Community Impact Project. As their teacher has been emphasizing the importance of measuring impact, when I asked for their feedback, I tried to tie it back to that idea of impact. For homework, I asked each student to each spend 20 minutes writing about 1) how this experience had impacted them, and 2) if they were to use the Puzzle in a community service setting, how they would do things differently to make a bigger/better impact. This created a nice parallel. With their time and their words, these students were helping me to help others. Thus, the playtesting and the feedback are themselves a CIP. In the spirit of fairness, and again recognizing the importance of measuring impact, I promised that after I had had a chance to think on the day and read over their feedback, I would write them a letter describing the impact that they had had on me. I'll put that letter in the next post ...